Topic: Network cards - only PCI

[Herman Van Keer]

Are PCI network cards the only ones that are supported?

Can I eventually tweak the conf.modules file to have a ISA card up and running? Or does this break the whole install process?

Just curious...
The software looks very promising...

Thanks
Herman

[Kim Morrison]

Hi Herman,

We do nothing that would interfere with the use of ISA cards. However, some tweaking can be required  to get the iSA cards up and running.  So, PCI cards are considered "supported hardware" from the point of view of our support contracts and warranty...

Check a few weeks back on the bboard for more info - the original message subject line was DHCP and Cablemodems posted by Robert Magyar on September 24.  

Thanks for the post!  Best regards.

Kim

[Joseph Morrison]

Hello Herman,

I'll add a bit more detail as well:

> Are PCI network cards the only ones that are supported?

Officially, yes. But unofficially yes, you can edit the conf.modules file and configure an ISA card yourself. It's based on Red Hat 6.0, so any card that works with Red Hat can work with e-smith.

The best way to do it is to type commands like the following from the command line:

/sbin/e-smith/config set  EthernetDriver1 3c509
/sbin/e-smith/config set  EthernetDriver2 3c509

This updates the e-smith configuration file. (Replace "3c509" with the drivers for your ISA cards.) EthernetDriver1 is for eth0, and EthernetDriver2 is for eth1.

Whenever a change is made in the user interfaces (like choosing "save" on the console interface) the conf.modules file is regenerated. All lines that start with "alias eth" are removed and replaced with new lines based on the e-smith configuration file. If you need module options for your cards, you can put them directly in /etc/conf.modules; they will be left alone by the e-smith software.

> Just curious... The software looks very promising...

Thanks very much!
- Joe

[Charlie Brady]

Joseph Morrison wrote:

> Officially, yes. But unofficially yes, you can edit the
> conf.modules file and configure an ISA card yourself. It's
> based on Red Hat 6.0, so any card that works with Red Hat can
> work with e-smith.

Note that if the machine isn't a PCI bus machine, the install
will not complete all the setup. You will need to run the shell script /tmp/ks.script after rebooting for the machine to be in the e-smith configuration. Then perform the steps that Joe has
outlined. This restriction should go away in future releases.